


tony fucking stark

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Character Study, Essays, Meta, So Very Many Spoilers, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 14:32:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7365325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A character study of Tony Stark re: Civil War, and subsequent ranting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tony fucking stark

**Author's Note:**

> so I wrote this at 1 AM, because I've had a lot of feelings about Civil War for a while, and keeping them contained like thousands of tiny, angry bees is no longer a viable solution.  
> here are ten points of contention that I have with Civil War (and other sundry MCU installments) and it's portrayment of Tony.  
> lots of italics.  
> enjoy, and I love you!
> 
> -p

Let’s track this from the beginning, shall we?

 

I went to go see  _ Civil War _ the day after it came out. And then again the day after that. Both times, I was struck by how genuinely weak the conflict between Steve and Tony played out to be. Honestly, the movie was less about the Accords, and more about Bucky being a precious-cinnamon-bun-too-good-for-this-world-too-pure and Tony’s character development arcs/cycles. Other than that,  _ Civil War _ is more or less that one stupid argument you have with a good friend where you both escalate way too quickly and then you realize there’s no way to safely deescalate without losing face so you just don’t.

Okay, here’s the breakdown: _ Tony fucking Stark _ . I can’t even. This motherfucker has been through so much shit in the past couple of movies it is actually unbelievable. This man needs a hug. And a goddamn trophy. 

**Point of contention number one** : Tony Stark is still not okay about what happened in  _ Age of Ultron.  _ Frankly, he’s still not okay about what happened in  _ Iron Man 3. _ This is a person suffering from PTSD and severe panic attacks, that shit doesn’t just go away because you crossed movie continuities. Before that, he committed genocide on an  _ entire alien race and subsequently died in deep space.  _ He’s obviously struggling with his relationship with Pepper (see:  _ Iron Man 3, Age of Ultron,  _ and  _ Civil War _ ), and he’s still got this legacy thing eating at him (being a mass murderer for years doesn’t change with willpower and a badass suit, not all at once).

**Point of contention number two** , related to one:  _ no one gives a shit.  _ Tony Stark is actually falling apart, slowly, over the course of multiple movie arcs, and yet the other characters who make up the rest of his world  _ don’t seem to care at all.  _ Tony wakes up from a nightmare, having accidentally summoned the Mark 42, almost visibly crying and definitely upset over something from how hard he’s breathing, and Pepper not only  _ leaves him alone  _ without a second glance, she hits him with a decidedly mean passing shot as she does so: “Tinker with that”. Even without a diagnosis of PTSD or severe anxiety, no human being should ever do that to someone they love. Further, in  _ Age of Ultron:  _ Helen Cho takes a cheap shot at Tony’s partying habits after they get back from Sokovia, even though Tony  _ is literally on his way to his lab to work on the fucking scepter that he helped recover from some Bells of Notre Dame-ass castle in the middle of snowshit nowhere.  _ And again: Tony asks “anyone remember when I flew that nuke into a wormhole?” and his entire team  _ brushes him off.  _ They act like he’s bringing up something to hold over their heads, an oh no not again Tony’s talking about his  _ actual fucking death  _ and  _ subsequent sacrifice for the entirety of mankind  _ and  _ one of the main sources of his anxiety/traumatic stress  _ everyone cover their ears and sing  _ lalalala  _ until he stops. Let’s keep going: grieving mother confronts Tony and after seeing him exhibit one of the side-effects of him being an Avenger (paranoia that she’ll try to kill him) proceeds to blame him for her child’s death. More: Team Cap, when it finally gets it shit together, immediately blames Tony for what’s going on (I’m looking at you, Clint Barton, with your fucking futurist comment. Low key comparing Tony’s actions to Loki’s? _Not okay_ ) . It doesn’t matter that Ross has given him an impossible timeline,  _ or  _ the fact that Tony tries every last non-lethal approach to apprehending Rogers (who is actually a wanted fugitive and therefore Tony is  _ bound by law  _ to apprehend him) and still he is mocked by Clint (“he knows what’s best for you!”), Natasha (“I'm not the one that needs to watch their back”), and the entirety of Team Cap. Tony doesn’t even go after Bucky until it turns out, hey,  _ the fucker killed his parents.  _ But that’s a separate point altogether. It doesn’t seem to register with  _ any other character in the Marvel universe  _ that Tony is a real fucking person. He gets upset when you talk to him about his deadbeat father who casually destroyed his self-esteem (yeah, don’t think we missed that: “You know, they say sarcasm is a metric for potential. If that's true, you'll be a great man some day”, “Really, which broad?”. And, hey, throwback, let’s not forget when Howard Stark told his son he’d done good shit  _ on a video reel instead of in person during the seventeen years of Tony’s life he’d had to actually fucking tell him _ ), he gets upset because his love-life’s in turmoil, he gets upset when he’s shown  _ the destruction of everything he’s ever loved,  _ when his best friend  _ stabs him in the fucking back after bitching about “trust” and “accountability”,  _ when  _ he kills hundreds of people with his mistakes,  _ when  _ he’s suffering from mental disability,  _ when his  _ mother’s murderer is standing three feet from him and the guy he trusted with his life was keeping that fucking secret from him.  _

**Point of contention number two, subheading b** : Tony Stark is a member of this team and treating him like he isn’t is pissing me off. Hill’s line about Steve being the boss, Tony’s correction, and then Hill’s reaction which is essentially  _ just an eye roll even though Tony is right and also the reason she got to get out of SHIELD at all  _ is honestly one of the most annoying parts of  _ Age of Ultron  _ to me. 

**Point of contention number three** :  _ he is doing the only right he knows.  _ We have seen Tony fuck up so many times throughout the years that I think it’s safe to say by now it’s a character trait. Which is fine, because  _ real people fuck up too.  _ What’s bullshit is that he’s coming under fire for it, time and time again. Tony builds weapons of mass destruction for years on end? He builds the Iron Man armor to try and counterbalance that particular ledger. Tony’s getting too cocky and gets taken down a peg by Whiplash? He learns the fucking lesson and shores up on the party scene, as is referenced in  _ Iron Man 3.  _ Tony is shown a vision of the Earth being destroyed and his friends murdered in bloody fashion? He builds a safeguard to prevent that from ever happening. Oops, not a safeguard, unfortunately Tony builds a murder bot instead? He does the best he can to assure accountability in  _ the very next movie.  _ Tony Stark’s character doesn’t have arcs, it’s cyclical. He goes through this loop of making a mistake and then correcting it, or at least doing his best to, over and over again. And while it’s heartbreaking to watch him do this, it’s infuriating that no one will  _ help him,  _ let alone listen to what he’s saying (looking at you, Bruce). 

**Point of contention number four** :  _ Tony Stark is allowed to be upset about the murder of his mother and father. Tony Stark is allowed to feel anger, and grief. Tony Stark is allowed to feel betrayed because his fucking friend knew and didn’t tell him. Tony Stark is allowed to go after Bucky for murdering his goddamn parents while simultaneously refusing to hurt Steve  _ (“Move!”).  _ These are things Tony Stark is allowed to do.  _

**Point of contention number four subheading b:** It should be noted that Tony does not actually fight Steve until Steve initiates it. Tony had  _ changed his fucking mind,  _ had taken a huge step, a huge risk, and was willing to compromise to achieve a common goal with Steve. And then Steve, the bastard, acts as though Bucky’s emotions about not remembering committing murder are more valid than Tony’s emotions about  _ witnessing the brutal deaths of his parents.  _ Still, Tony doesn’t actually fight Steve (he does lash out, which is more a backhand to say  _ how dare you  _ and then get to Bucky in short order than it is to cause him actual harm, see: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, scene: Bucky beating the  _ shit _ out of Steve). Tony picks a fight with  _ Bucky,  _ but Steve throws himself into the mix and they end up tag-teaming the ever loving fuck out of Tony.  _ Ha ha ha you know what’s funny is that that’s exactly what Steve did in Winter Solider as Bucky fucked him up repeatedly but apparently Steve doesn’t have that mentality anymore ha ha ha. _

**Point of contention number four subheading b sub-subheading b** :  _ Bucky tries to pull out the arc reactor. Bucky Barnes tries to pull out the fucking arc reactor.  _

**Point of contention number five** : Tony Stark is doing a little better than his best, here, and yet it’s severely underappreciated. Tony’s the one who grants a shit-ton of money to fulfill the MIT kids’ project expenditures. Tony’s also the one who invests money into non-invasive therapies like his little memory-jack and gets up in front of  _ total strangers  _ and lays out the source of his Daddy issues and long-term self-esteem issues and his particular brand of survivor’s guilt. Tony’s the one who proposes Bucky receive psychological help instead of running off to go play vigilante with his long-lost war buddy turned super assassin (cough cough  _ Steve _ ). Tony’s the one who tries to protect Wanda, who tries to protect her  _ from Ross,  _ who ends up locking her up after Clint busts her out (and guess who’s the one they blame for that). Tony’s the one proposing non-lethal methods of apprehending Team Cap so that he  _ doesn’t hurt his friends who are also, oh yeah, his family now.  _

**Point of contention number six** : Steve Rogers you utter bastard. Let’s recap who it was in  _ Age of Ultron  _ who spent most of the movie passive-aggressively bitching and whining about “not being able to trust his teammates” (Tony via Ultron, Thor via his vision of the Infinity Stones). When crunch-time comes around in  _ Civil War,  _ though, guess who’s the one who can’t be trusted? Say it with me: Captain America! He had the audacity to actually reply to Tony’s “we’ll lose” with “then we’ll lose together” in  _ Age of Ultron.  _ In  _ Civil War,  _ he makes the opening move of dissent in not attending the signing of the Accords. He then sets off with Sam to get Bucky, completely disregarding the rest of his team, and then shows back up like he’s hot shit telling Tony he’s wrong for trying to  _ limit the team.  _

**Point of contention number seven** : Where Tony and Steve were different in  _ Civil War  _ was that Tony was able to compromise. Steve did absolutely nothing to try and remedy the giant fucking chasm growing between the Avengers. Tony, after backing his position on the Accords up until the airport battle, in which he very nearly loses his best friend since college, the guy who  _ never stopped looking for him when he was held prisoner in the fucking desert.  _ And even though Rhodey is severely hurt and might not actually make it, Tony takes a step back and tries to reason things out with Steve. Tries to see things from his perspective. Tries to find a way to protect Bucky but also not be a massive asshole who chooses which laws suit him when  _ (cough cough Steve).  _

**Point of contention number eight** : Why is Tony the only one who seems to remember that someone’s fucking around with the Avengers? Honestly, I don’t get it. Steve seems hell-bent on ripping the Avengers in two in  _ Civil War _ , even though in  _ Age of Ultron  _ Thor explicitly said that someone was toying with them, playing a long-con. Apparently Tony is the only one who seems to get that, as his every action is geared toward keeping the Avengers together as a functioning unit. 

**Point of contention number nine** :  _ Not once is a better solution to the Accords proposed.  _ Steve and the rest of Team Cap seem to have an awful lot of emotions about the Accords for a group of people who  _ didn’t even attempt to find/discuss/brainstorm/propose another solution. _

**Point of contention number ten** :  _ what the fuck is this double standard between Steve and Tony and how can I burn it to the ground.  _ It’s fucking ridiculous how much Steve is idolized for doing the same shit Tony is villainized for. Tony attempts to create the Ultron program in the hopes of saving his friends and family and  _ the entire Earth  _ in  _ Age of Ultron _ ? Call him untrustworthy and spend the rest of the movie criticizing his judgement. Steve rejects the Accords outright in order to protect the Avengers, and later, Bucky? Clint runs a color commentary on Tony including these gems: “He knows what's best for you, whether you like it or not”, “You gotta watch your back with this guy! There's a chance he's gonna break it!”

**Point of contention number ten, subheading b** :  _ Why the fuck was Clint such an asshole to Tony in Civil War. _

 

Hey, you know what’s a fun game? Drawing on the actual  _ Civil War  _ comic to inform the argument presented by the movie. Let’s try that, just for a few pertinent points: 

**1** : Tony Stark was blackmailed by a Senator who wanted him to accepted Directorship of SHIELD or else let it be revealed that Iron Man blew up a commercial airplane filled with some six hundred people  _ while under mind control _ .  _ Even though when Bucky Barnes gets brainwashed and sent to kill people Steve and the rest of Team Cap rush to his aid the poor little muffin he didn’t do anything wrong it wasn’t him.  _ Meanwhile, Tony is taking shit for killing people  _ even though he didn’t actually commit murder.  
_

**2** : _ Tony Stark paid for the funeral of a superhero killed during the Civil War struggle, even though he was against the Registration Act.  _

**3** : Tony Stark is brought to the scene of a mass murder (superhero-vs-supervillain grudge match gone horribly wrong) and instructed to help _ clear the bodies of dead children _ alongside Peter Parker as one of the precipitating events of the Act.

**4** :  _ Tony Stark was the only superhero to go to their fucking funeral.  _

(For more information on why comics-Tony was also fucked with during Civil War, and relevant panels from a myriad of continuities, check out [this](http://knightinironarmor.tumblr.com/post/108142729140/re-tony-and-the-civil-war) amazingly comprehensive post!)  


But, fair, what happened in the comics is a lot different than what happened in the movies. It’s biased of me to start preaching Earth-616 logos when talking about an MCU movie. 

 

But I digress.


End file.
